"Using historical figures for fantastic armies" Topic

Hmmm… the Bug biteth, and what he biteth, doth be thrown to the winds.

Still, this is answerable, even if no post exists.

Setting aside the truth that many "historical" figures are essentially fantasy (as in "made up"), yes, I will use historical figures for fantasy and vice versa. But I'm primarily a fantasy gamer. I have some 10mm Dark Ages minis all primed to paint as Tolkien's "Dunlanders" (allies of Saruman) for a Helm's Deep project.
I'm also looking around for some viable Byzantine Heavy Cataphracts to use as the Knights of Dol Amroth for the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and something suitable as the forces of Sauron's Southron allies (I'm thinking some Saracen heavy cavalry, or, if I can find them, Scythian cavalry because of the really funky helmets:

Now, doesn't that look like a fantasy warrior, and not like anything you think a real life figure would wear?

I'm also thinking of creating a GW style "Bretonnian" army out of medieval Crusader knights.

Quite often, using the Fantastic Battles rules, Carthaginians against the undead was a jolly good scrap,

Tally Ho!

I do a lot of Tolkienesque gaming and like old school 25mm figures. In order to build the armies you want, at the best price and flexibility, I have more recently been mixing in historical figures, painted up as fantasy troops. I finally finished up an Easterling and Harad force, that was started with 70's era Heritage figures, but finished off with mostly Old Glory medieval figures (After only 16 years in the box!). Just added painted shields and banners with Harad and Sauron symbology. Anyone else having success with this easy conversion method?
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Oops. I tried to include the photos embedded into the original post and maybe they were too large, so I linked to my Google Drive instead.

I do appreciate the responses though. I think Parzival's suggestions are excellent. I decided to use Persians as Easterlings and Arab troops as Harad to bolster my original Heritage LotR figures. Not that much of a stretch. I also substitute regular elephants as Mumakil. This works well when you not super concerned about scale (in rank and file gaming, I am thinking each 25mm mini is representing maybe 20 troops so even though the elephant troops are a little small, they work for me). If you step back from Peter Jackson's concepts, you can use all sorts of substitutes if they are painted accordingly. What about Samuri for Easterlings? Not the ones with gunpowerder. They could also work, or be mixed into the lot for a funky look.

Those look great! Nice job.

I agree— a nicely done force, which really look the part.

I don't mind mixing history/fantasy or even to some extent scale. A while back I did a couple of 20mm HOTT armies using historical figures. Caesars Ch'in Dynasty Chinese suited my image of Elves better than either the Caesar or Dark/Light Alliance offerings (and being slightly large for '20mm' they looked better on the table too) and I used PSC's Gothic Infantry, which are 15mm, as my Dwarves.

What I sometimes do is turning my historical armies into semi-historical ones by adding a few fantasy elements. Frex, my DBX Macbethian Scots army can take the field as a semi-historical HOTT army with the addition of a trio of witches.

What I like about the 'fantasy human' armies is that they tend to be a little over-the-top. I'm building a 15mm Empire army currently, using DemonWorld figures.

On the other hand, I've repurposed some old 15mm historicals (not sculpted to today's standards) as Orcs!

I mix historic and fantasy armies all the time. I do 15mm.

I'll occasionally do a fantasy-historic by having a mixed fantasy army, say gnomes/wood elves/dwarves take on Normans and the scenario is the Olde World trying to hold back the humans.

I also have fantasy elements I'll add to historic troops for a fantasy world setting. So my Arabs have djinn, flying carpets, and rocket troops. My Europeans have wizards, Davinci's tanks, and dragon riders. My Celts have werewolves. My Greeks have centaurs, amazons, and cyclopes.

For Tolkein gaming I used 25mm elephants with home made platforms and Arab archers mounted on them.

Been doing that since the mid-90's. Bought a historical Carthaginian Army off a friend. I use it for an army on a tropical island in my fantasy world: the tropical heat means they would not wear heavy armors, such as chain mail nor plate mail.

I also bought a unit of ancient historical Slingers, which is an underrated weapon in most fantasy RPG's. They, too, are lightly armored, so I can add them to any fantasy Human army I need them for.

I have searched through the reviews on Plastic Soldier Review website, too many times, looking for historical sets that I could press into fantasy service.

I get a good laugh out of some of their reviews. They sometimes state that no one really knows what a historical army actually looked like, but what is offered in the reviewed sets, is plausible… In other words, they're fantasy, made up approximations, or "artist's concept" of what they might have looked like.

I, too, use different scales of figures, to make a more accurate presentation of a particular fantasy race, per the source book I am modeling. Some folks have Elves as being 6+ feet tall, while other sources list them at 4-5 feet tall and slender of build.

In fantasy, "scale" is rather meaningless. I search for figures that measure up to the size I need, for the source I am using, relative to the size of my Human figures. It's been great fun, to see the author's vision, in proper proportions. Cheers!

I use historical figures almost exclusively for my LoTR project in 28mm. Even where I chose fantasy figures I want to be more historical in appearance. So I use Vendel Orcs rather than the GW version. I am building Gondor on the basis of Early Byzantine and using Germans for Dunlenders. When I get to Harad I will use Arabs etc. I think the challenge is to root your fantasy interpretation into a historical epoch and then go with it. For me, LoTR is closest to the 5-7th century of Europe and the Middle East. So I use the figures from that vintage to build out my armies.

I see I'm not alone here and didn't expect to be. Although GW probably wishes I were and none of you guys used anything but Peter Jackson/Tolkien Estate approved minis. I agree that some historical periods in time produced armor, both stylized and functional, that are much more in line with what I imagined the troops looked like when I read LOTR as a kid. I also don't like cartoony figures; not that there is anything wrong with gamers who do. All that plate mail for Gondor gives me a headache. Give me chainmail, barded mail, or leather, great helms and shields any time. Same goes for Uruk Hai.

All that plate mail for Gondor gives me a headache. Give me chainmail, barded mail, or leather, great helms and shields any time. Same goes for Uruk Hai.

Me too. In fact I found Peter Jackson's films caused me headaches in so many ways. I completely understand that transferring the books into film would require serious adaptation. But many of Jackson's changes seemed gratuitous to me and completely unnecessary.

"I, too, use different scales of figures, to make a more accurate presentation of a particular fantasy race, per the source book I am modeling. Some folks have Elves as being 6+ feet tall, while other sources list them at 4-5 feet tall and slender of build."

I also use 25mm Pixies in my 15mm army. Looks like a race of flyers about the size of hobbits.